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The Score: Legal Fees, Lawsuits, and Changing Leagues

Posted by Brian Baxter

UPDATE: 11/26/11, 1:30 p.m., EST. The NBA and its players have announced a tentative labor agreement, according to CBS Sports and The New York Times. Weil's James Quinn and Bruce Meyer took the lead representing the players union in settlement talks with the league over the past week. A 66-game season is expected to start on Christmas Day.

In order to shoulder the high cost of its antitrust litigation with the NBA, the union is withholding licensing payments to players to put them aside for legal fees, according to McMenamin.

The Am Law Daily reported last week on the significance of Boies's entry into the collective bargaining fray, including questions about a potential conflict he might have as a result of his previous representation of NFL owners earlier this year in a similar labor dispute. But Boies's involvement on the players' side doesn't necessarily mean the lines of communication with management are totally closed.

As of late Wednesday, both sides had quietly resumed negotiations in the hope of salvaging a season that would begin on Christmas Day, according to The New York Times. Boies, Schiller name partner Jonathan Schiller has released a statement confirming the settlement talks, The Washington Post reports.

Friedman, who had designs on forming his own group to buy the Astros earlier this year, happens to be the father of Tampa Bay Rays general manager Andrew Friedman. Yankowsky told the Chronicle that if the local Sports Authority refuses to renegotiate its lease with the Astros, it can force the team to remain in the National League and give MLB the option of suing if it wants to proceed with the move.

Another NHL team that may soon be sold is the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Original Six franchise's majority owner, the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, has been trying to unload the Leafs for several months. One suitor that has recently emerged for Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, which owns the Leafs, NBA's Toronto Raptors, and Major League Soccer's Toronto FC, is private equity firm Providence Equity Partners, according to reports by Bloomberg and The Toronto Star.

Penn State University, whose various legal wranglings we've previously covered here, here, and here, announced this week that it had hired former FBI director and federal judge Louis Freeh to head an internal investigation into a child sex abuse scandal involving former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky and university officials accused of failing to report Sandusky's conduct to the proper authorities.

While Freeh said at a press conference that he has no ties to Pennsylvania or Penn State, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that he had once served as an executive at a company with close ties to the school. A Penn State spokesman told The Am Law Daily that Freeh's firm is the only one working with the special committee and that he will have complete independence to conduct his inquiry. The Am Law Daily reported last week that the board of trustees had hired Reed Smith as outside counsel, but that the firm would not work with the special committee.

Putting the Penn State saga aside, as well as the public disclosure of similar sex abuse investigations at The Citadel and Syracuse, the former chief operating officer for the Fiesta Bowl, Natalie Wisneski, has been indicted on charges of filing false income tax returns for the bowl game, according to The Associated Press. Wisneski also faces federal campaign finance and conspiracy charges for soliciting political donations from bowl employees and later agreeing to reimburse them.

Nathan Hochman, a litigation partner with Bingham McCutchen in Santa Monica, is serving as interim general counsel for the Fiesta Bowl, whose future is undetermined. Hochman told The AP that the bowl "continues to fully cooperate with all federal, state, and local investigations."

Around the Horn

—First Terrell Owens. Then Clinton Portis. Now two more NFL players, Duane Starks and Roscoe Parrish, are suing Greenberg Traurig and real estate partner Pamela Linden over their failed investments in an Alabama casino, according to sibling publication the Daily Business Review. All four players (Parrish is the only one currently active) have filed separate suits against Linden and the firm. The DBR reports that more players are expected to file suit, claiming Greenberg Traurig steered them into the electronic bingo operation and failed to notify them of potential conflicts of interest.

—Hulk Hogan may be a champion in the ring, but the famous wrestler just got pinned in divorce court. The St. Petersburg Times reports that the Hulkster's ex-wife, Linda Bollea, got 70 percent of the couple's savings and 40 percent ownership of Hogan's business ventures in a confidential settlement. Hogan does get to keep any money he makes from personal appearances, and he's off the hook as far as alimony.